Many prior art devices have been developed to assist a person with eye focus defects to perform orthoptic eye exercises. These exercises are adapted to correct mainly fusion deficiencies, such as, but not limited to convergence insufficiency, divergence excess or intermittent strabismus. Convergence insufficiencies include exophoria or esophoria. Intermittent strabismus includes intermittent exotropia and esotropia.
These prior systems currently in use are based on the stereoscopic effect or binocular vision, wherein each eye is presented a separate picture, and the patient is required to exert the eyes muscles to integrate the two pictures into one focused image.
Moreover, these prior art devices are not useful for the intermittent suppression deficiency, that is while one eye ceases at times from participating in the image forming process. When this happens, the usual eye exercises are no more effective.
In prior art Israel Patent No. 119274, the present inventor disclosed a device which can be used at home. However, the picture movement is made manually by the user himself. Sometimes the velocity of movement is not appropriate for the desired exercise. There may not be sufficient consistency in the exercise, when performing it at a different rate each time.
Moreover, the user has no indication, while performing the exercise, of the actual performance having been achieved. Only after finishing the exercise, the user can look at the achieved performance; this may not be enough an incentive for improvement, nor does it give an intuitive feeling for what is done, in real time.
Yet another possible problem in prior art is that the user is responsible for deciding when picture tracking is lost—this is important in evaluating the success of the exercise, as well as motivating the user.
However, the non-professional user may not be aware of his losing track, or may become aware of it only after a time delay—thus the effectiveness of the device may be impaired.
WO2009/138964 to Nimkovitch describes an optical apparatus for performing eye exercise comprising base means shaped generally like an elongated beam; picture means which is suitable for eye exercise and includes positioning means for positioning said picture means at various locations along said base means; electrical light means attached to said base means, including lamp means and switch means for turning said lamp on and off; ocular means including two viewing apertures, each located in front of one eye, said ocular means being mounted on or close to one end of said base means; audio feedback means for generating, during the eye exercise performance, an audio signal whose characteristics are indicative of the distance of the moving picture from the user's eyes.
None of the prior art devices allow a professional operator, such as an optician, a physician or a technician to track the user or patient's progress and to compare his/her progress over time. There thus remains a need to provide improved othorptic devices and methods.